BOY BITES ARTISTARTIST BITES BACK!
When Picasso Comes To Stay Anything Can Happen… World-famous artist Pablo Picasso was in Chiddingly this week visiting the Penrose family while on a rare trip to the UK. He got more than he bargained for as little Tony (3 years old) took a playtime bullfight a little too seriously!
In This Weeks Surreal Times: Inside this newspaper there are lots more ideas for creating your own art, suggestions for where to look for more information online, exciting things to do, and a bit about the people who’ve put this show together.
Lee Miller, mother of Tony, the boy who left a toothy souvenir on the great artists arm, said “Well, what can you do? We have so much fun when Picasso visits he got a little carried away.” (The editor would like to point out that biting people and drawing on walls is really quite naughty and something you shouldn’t do at home).
We really hope you enjoyed coming to see The Boy Who Bit Picasso. We’d love it if you took this home and tried out some of the activities. It would be even better if when you’ve done that, you take photos of your work and send them into us.
Bull escapes field to buy a newspaper
We have 3 copies of Tony’s book to give away to people who send in the best artwork! Each month from February 2016 on we’ll select one lucky winner so get creative! Be sure to add your name and age to any pic you send us. You can send your pictures a number of ways… Tweet a pic to @jakeuntied or with hashtag #TheBoyWhoBitPicasso Send a photo via facebook.com/ theuntiedartists Email jake@theuntiedartists.co.uk
More on page № 3 ¾
You can also find photos of all the creations that Tony’s mum takes pictures of in the show at flickr.com/photos/ untiedartists. Parents note – You’ll see we’ve suggested some Google image searches. As always please use a bit of caution with the web. Picasso has a big body of work; some might be less suitable for little ones.
"Painting is just another way of keeping a diary" PABLO PICASSO In these boxes you can draw some of the things that happened to you this week. You might draw some animals, or people that you saw. Or places you went, or food you ate. Be big, bold and colourful! Google images search ideas: Picasso Family Paintings
Penrose family to host the country's first Annual Spaghetti Eating Contest next Spring! More on page № 8 ¾
The contents of this page might be really BORING... UNTIED ARTISTS Untied Artists are a Birmingham based company led by Jake Oldershaw and Jo Carr. They create diverse, engaging performance characterised by intimacy, musicality and heartfelt storytelling. Recent projects include: For Their Own Good – Fringe first 2013 award winner – An exploration of what we can learn about our own deaths through examining the way we kill other animals.
“Astonishingly poignant…a rare energy and power” The Scotsman The Story Of The Four Minute Mile – A site-specific show celebrating Roger Bannister’s record breaking run with Oxford Playhouse.
“We get a whiff of what it might have been like to be in those illustrious running-shoes all those years ago. And that’s quite something.” The Daily Telegraph Intimate History (Toured Nationally and Internationally 2005-2010) - A one–to-one performance. Mini epics of astonishing sweetness and emotional depth brought to life using found objects, tiny models, heartfelt music and song.
"Makes Makes you feel so special you’ll want to stay and pour yourself another drink" Vancouver Courier The Boy Who Bit Picasso was originally was originally co-produced with Oxford Playhouse. theunitiedartists.co.uk
A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR The opportunity to bring this brilliant story and book to life is a real privilege, and special thanks have to go to Tony Penrose for agreeing to let us sink our teeth into it. I’d also like to thank Michelle Walker, former OP producer, for wholeheartedly supporting us as a company and believing in the potential of the idea. Famously, Picasso is quoted as saying ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once you grow old.’ I have to say now I’m 40, and a dad, I really understand this! Creativity is a fundamental human need, and as the pressures of making ends meet, keeping healthy, supporting family, earning a living grow greater it’s ever more difficult to find time and energy to serve that intrinsic urge. I’m lucky enough to have come from a family that mixed the arts and medicine in equal measure. Over the years doctors and vets, dentists and nurses have sat round the table with poets, painters, musicians and roadies. As a result when I was young I was exposed to what I realise now was pretty ‘grown-up’ stuff for a pre-teen. My dad was a big jazz fan. My uncle was a tour manager at the heart of the 80’s new wave, and I fed on a musical diet of Elvis Costello, The Pogues, and all their influences alongside all the generic chart hits. My wonderful and selfless grandmother married David Gascoyne, a surrealist poet. She was instrumental in reviving his mental health, and career. My young eyes watched as they brought back pictures and mementos from exciting world travels. My ears were open to his work, and the words of Breton, Eluard, Soupault and many others. Gascoyne was very active in the Surrealist movement and, together with Roland Penrose, set up the first Surrealist exhibition in the UK in
1936. The images created by Dali, Ernst, Miro and the rest open up a universe of otherness that is in danger of being quietly ignored, or dismissed as an unnecessary distraction once conformity sets in.
THANKS
These days I feel very lucky to have had those influences around me as I grew up, and see the Surrealist collective as the single most important movement in art history. Their influence goes beyond the mediums they chose to express themselves in, and has permeated everyday consciousness in ways they would never have imagined. Picasso, who was claimed by the Surrealists as one of their own, is also at the centre of that influence. His signature even goes on cars as if some of his creative power might rub off on them for goodness sake. Every current object theatre company owes his sculpture work a massive debt. And Damien Hirst would never have got that shark in a box without him.
Peter Holmes, Kazuko Hohki, Serafim Bakalis,Louise Mai Newberry,Charlotte Gregory, Nick Tigg, SJ Watkinson, Mick Diver, Trevor Pitt, Jess Pearson, Steve Johnstone, Rachel Snape, Malcolm Jennings & Derek Nisbet.
Tony had the good fortune to enjoy the whirlwind of Picasso’s unending creativity first hand, and his incredible parents had ground breaking artists visit like we might have had our granny to tea. I hope by recreating their relationship and inviting children of the 21st century to experience it, some of that energy and sense of wonder might just rub off a bit. Whatever those children become; doctors, teachers, builders, window cleaners, I hope they keep a place for that creativity in whatever they do. And that goes for you parents, teachers and carers too. The next time you get a bit run down by the monotony of family life, or the grind of the day to day. Close the laptop and put down the phone.Turn off the TV and pick up a pencil, pen, scissors, glue. Do some colouring in, read a book. Sing a song, dance around. Do it all at the same time. Pretend. Play. Children are experts at this stuff, you just need to remember how it goes.
This paper was made possible thanks to generous donations from:
DID YOU KNOW..? Picasso’s full name really was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso!
Cut and paste! WITH ROLAND PENROSE Tony’s dad, was also a great artist. He took pictures from postcards, newpapers and books, and turned them into fantastic new creatures and pictures by sticking them together in collages. Use the images on this page to make your own collage. Try adding colours, and making crazy new shapes and creatures by putting odd pictures together. You could add pictures from other magazines or postcards you ďŹ nd. Google images search idea: Roland Penrose Collage
Cast & Crew CREATIVE TEAM Deviser / Director Jake Oldershaw Dramaturg Gary Winters Designer Rebecca Lee Lighting Designer Costa Cambanakis Touring Technical Manager Kirsty Smith Producer for Untied Artists Joanna Carr Rehearsal Stage Manager Alex Weltike William the Bull created by Jamie Duncombe at Creature Encounter Programme design & illustration garethcourage.co.uk With thanks to Tony Penrose, Lee Miller Archive and all at Farley Farm; Thames and Hudson; Michelle Walker; Jenny Lewis, Sue and Miles Oldershaw, Nick Tigg, All at Oxford Playhouse.
JAKE OLDERSHAW Since graduating from Dartington College of Arts in 1995 Jake has collaborated and devised work with a diverse range of artists. He has toured internationally with Stan’s Cafe, Talking Birds, Reckless Sleepers, Kaos Theatre and Wendy Houstoun among others. He has also co-created several Theatre in Education performances for Language Alive. He has appeared in the BBC’s Doctors, Silver St and The
Gary is a visiting lecturer on contemporary performance courses in UK and beyond, and has recently worked on projects with arts companies Instant Dissidence and Common Wealth Theatre. He collaborates on live and visual art projects for the city of York with artist Claire Hind.
Archers. The radio series Dr Pfeffer’s Lonely Hearts Club,which he co-wrote with Craig Stephens, was broadcast by the BBC in 2008. As Artistic Director of Untied Artists, Jake has won a Fringe First Award, two Bitesize commissions, and is the creative engine behind a host of unusual interdisciplinary art projects
EDWARD MORRIS Ed is an actor and puppeteer who has spent many years working in touring theatre using drama with young people.
CAST Lee Miller Jill Dowse Pablo Picasso Ed Morris Tony Penrose Jake Oldershaw
The Boat Project was commissioned to mark the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. 2015 will see the company tour their new theatrical production True West and develop The 800, a major national project to celebrate the 800year anniversary of the Magna Carta.
JILL DOWSE Jill is a theatre, voice and music practitioner, co-Artistic Director of The Bone Ensemble and co-founded Foursight Theatre. Jill’s practice focuses on devised, site-specific and intimate performance, as well as growing interests in outdoor work and younger audiences. Current projects with The Bone Ensemble include: Caravania (set in a touring caravan); Igloo (a beautiful, off-grid, interactive experience), and Chocolate – the Cabaret, which is set to tour in Autumn 2015.
Theatre work includes appearances at Birmingham Rep, Belgrade Theatre Coventry and tours with companies as diverse as Maverick Theatre, Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah, Women and Theatre and Playhouse (Birmingham). Ed has also worked using drama in education for the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Youth Theatre and MAC (Birmingham) among many others. When not working in theatre or with young people, Ed can be found either at home in Birmingham with his family or operating giant puppets at street arts events across the globe!
We’re currently planning a 2016 companion piece to Igloo, a family show called Where’s My Igloo Gone? Jill also works freelance for companies such as Stan’s Cafe, Kiln Ensemble, Platform 4, Talking Birds and Yvon Bonenfant, and tours Window Dressing with The Windows Collective.
GARY WINTERS Gary Winters graduated from Dartington College of Arts in 1997 and formed the performance group Lone Twin with fellow graduate Gregg Whelan. The company has created an internationally celebrated body of work for stage, gallery and public space. In 2012
YOU This box is for making your own picture! Picasso once said that ‘To draw, you must close your eyes and sing’. Why don’t you close your eyes and try to draw a picture of your face? All the pictures on this page have been made like this. You might be surprised with the results! If you feel like it you could sing your favourite song while you draw. You can also write down where you go to school, your favourite food and other things about yourself. You could even pretend you were in the show too. What character would you like to be? Draw this picture on a bigger sheet of paper if you need to.
Do this task before you cut out the mask on the next page! Picasso had a great sense of humour, and often made creatures or people out of things you wouldn’t expect. On this page draw faces, legs, arms, hair, hats etc on these images. Imagine if things like spoons really did come to life! Google images search idea: Picasso Bull's Head
In other news…
Not everyone thought Picasso was an amazing artist. This piece of writing was from a real newspaper called The Guardian in 1945. The words are quite difficult so you might need a grown up to help you read it. It says schoolchildren shouldn't be allowed to see his paintings! What do you think about that?! “Picasso is the villain. It is he who has debased the coinage of art and produced an insidious growth that will sap the roots of all that is fine in painting, a crazy guying of humankind from which our schoolchildren should be protected.”
S
C
U
L
P
T
U
R
E
P
T
Y
M
K
I
B
O
P
D
H
N
A
A
S
C
U
D
B
H
O
O
Q
S
T
A
L
Y
K
L
T
E
Z
K
S
S
L
B
T
M
O
G
T
S
Q
S
W
R
A
U
G
I
R
X
E
O
F
O
O
K
R
P
A
I
N
T
I
N
G
R
A
B
N
A
N
T
O
N
Y
P
P
Owl Mask
Colour this mask in then cut it out and get someone to take a photo of you wearing it. Don’t forget to send in as many pictures as you can to the links on the front page. Tony’s mum, Lee Miller was a brilliant photographer. You can see lots of her photos at leemiller.com Google images search idea: Picasso Masks
WORDSEARCH BULL PICASSO COLLAGE SCULPTURE PAINTING PHOTOGRAPH
GOAT PIGEON MASKS ANTONY ART